Just to rekindle this potentially interesting thread, I stumbled upon the following coin:
CONSTANTI-NVS MAX AVG rosette diademed and draped bust of Constantine right /
GLOR-IA EXERC-ITVS, two soldiers with spears on ezach side of a standard with an annulet. CONS in the exergue.
What apears on the photo as deposit, is for the larger part the original silvering.
Constantinople regularly used the mintmark CONS without an officina letter/symbol, but, as far as I know, not on this type.
Who can shed some more light on this matter?
Frans
Please see a second example of the unlisted coin originally posted by Frans (image re-posted to allow for direct comparison, the new coin shown first). While the
flan is a
bit short at the place where an
officina later might be, the
exergual line is
complete so that there would at least be some traces of the
officina if it
had one I think. This second example, struck from different dies, increases the possibility that this was an official (albeit short-lived) issue of
Constantine I.
RIC VII lists the marks for the start of the 1
standard GLORIA issue as
CONS and then CONSA, i.e. that the
CONS mark was used first followed by CONSA. The only
CONS coin listed is for the
SECVRITAS PVBLICA issue of
Hanniballianus (number 145) which is placed after the CONSA coins of
Constantine I and sons and the city
commemoratives (numbers 137 to 144) despite the order implied in the heading of the section (perhaps a layout issue, placing the
CONS issue of
Hanniballianus after the initial CONSA coins of
Constantine I and family allowed for all the
Hanniballianus issues to be listed together, i.e. for both the
CONS and CONSA marks?).
There is at least 1 precedent for a short-lived mark at the start of a new design eg. Antioch's first 2 soldiers issue (SMANTA) is listed by RIC (number 85) as only being known for
Constantine I, before the mark was changed to SMANA, which is known for
Constantine I and all the Caesars, and the city
commemoratives. (NB SMANTA is now also known for
Constantine II,
Constantius II, and the city
commemoratives, but not (yet?) for
Constans or
Delmatius per Not in RIC)
Another option could be that it is a coin of
Constantine II issued after the death of
his father, but this is less likely I think.
Per RIC VIII, while the
CONS mark is known for
Helena and the
Quadriga type, barring one
rare coin of
Constantius II of the
GLORIA type (51A with the mark CONSA), all the
GLORIA types for
Constantinople have heads, rather than draped busts. Also, while some mints included the
MAX variant in the
obverse legend for
Constantine II,
Constantius II and
Constans post 337, at
Constantinople it is only known for Constantius, the aforementioned
rare and somewhat anomalous 51A
Weight is 1.63 g